


until the end

by Ceminar



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sadstuck, Terminal Illnesses, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:48:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2044803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceminar/pseuds/Ceminar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your kismesis has been acting oddly over the sweeps. When you follow him home, you discover that he's sick. He won't get better. You don't know how to deal with it, but you manage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	until the end

**Author's Note:**

> A request from an Ask Meme. Number 44, which was was Terminal Illness. I still suck at summaries, but I understand that this is quite possibly very hard for some people to read. If you do not think you can stand reading about someone helping someone else before they pass, I strongly urge you to not continue.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

You've watched him over the sweeps, here in the bubbles. He was your rival. You hated him, but you liked having him there. You wouldn't say he was the best of rivals, but you had no desire to kill him. To see him dead. To you, it was a nice extended game of cat and mouse. He would chase you, and you would taunt him, throw him off your trail. It went on for days, sometimes weeks before he would manage to corner you, to trap you. And those times let to some of the best nights of your after life. How you would fill him with your ‘detestable mustard colored filth’, and all the while, he would quietly beg for more.

The insults you would trade. The bruises. The scars.

They weren't supposed to end.

But he started taking longer to find you. Those night started coming to an end sooner and sooner. Sometimes, he would just let you go without a fight.

How could he get sick? He was fucking dead! DEAD! He couldn't get fucking sick! He couldn't fucking die again! That wasn't fair!

You remembered the night you found out. You had followed him to his bubble, his hive, peered in through one of the windows and saw him, doubled over in a coughing fit you couldn't hear. You saw, when he moved his hand, the violet staining it, dripping down his chin. You saw how much pain he was in. How he tried to compose himself and climbed into his recuperacoon still fully dressed and sank into the sopor.

He slept for days, and you grew worried. When he finally climbed out, he fell, ungracefully to the floor, body wracking in more coughs, before he heaved, violet bile coating the floor. He tried to rise, but he only fell into the mess, giving up moments later.

Your rival could never be weak enough for something like this to kill them. He was stronger than that. He HAD to be.

You enter then, opening the window with the same powers that let your float just outside it all this time, landing by his side. He looked away when he noticed you, weakly told you to leave and you wanted to get angry. To level his entire pathetic excuse for a hive and leave him there, like one of his many victims back when you all were alive. Alone and without anyone to care for him.

But you couldn't. Living with Signless and Disciple and Mother for so long… Some habits were hard to shake. Even after being held as you had for as long as you had. You weren't his caretaker. You weren't his moirail or his matesprit. But you help him. Carefully, you envelop him in those blue and red lights, carrying him out of the respiteblock to his ablution trap. You strip him, and he protests weakly as you slide him into the cool water.

You are silent as you clean him, washing the bile and sopor from his hair, his face. He makes a comment of you acting out of quadrant, but you ignore it. When you finish, he grunts a thanks, stating he could have done it himself.

That’s bullshit, you say. You strike him then. You tell him you've been watching. That you know he isn't well, and he sinks lower into the trap, the tub, he calls it, and looks away.

You ask how long he’s been sick and he says he doesn't know. Sweeps, for sure. You hiss at him. You ask when he planned on telling you and he seems to get some of his old spark back. He stands over you, only taller because you’re kneeling. It isn't your job to worry about him. To care for him. Your relationship is based on hate and hate alone. If he wanted your pity, he says, he would have approached with mutual feelings. But he didn't.

You growl up at him, blood starting to pump like it hadn't in so long seeing him like that, fins flared, imposing, even in his nudity. THAT is your rival. You get to your feet. You hover, just off the floor so YOU’RE looking down on HIM.

A rival is no good dead, you tell him. You can’t even consider him worthy of your hate if he’s passed out in his own sick. He’s nothing. You might not have red feelings for him, but that doesn't mean he can keep shit like that from you! He can’t leave you suddenly without a warning.

You think he’s about to grab for you, and excitedly, you ready for the attack. You think he’s improved, back to himself. Instead, he covers his mouth as he coughs again, more violet spilling from between is fingers and his fins droop. He drops to his knees and you sigh, lowering yourself to the floor once more.

You hate him, you tell him, even as you help him from the room.

You stay with him. Till the end. You watch as he starts to waste away a sweep after you begin to care for him. His color is paler than normal. His violent tinted eyes slowly lose their color, looking truly more dead than ever. He has no appetite. Sometimes he’ll go days without eating.

Daily, you remind him you hate him. You continue to trade insults, but they start to lack that spark. Simply going through the motions. Forcing yourself to keep hating him, though what is there to hate? He’s leaving you. For good. And you come to accept that.

One day, after his coughing fit and as you clean his mouth of blood, he grabs you, pulls you close.

He tells you to stop pretending. He tells you to leave, if you’re going to continue to halfass this kismesissitude.

You don’t even growl at him. You don’t hiss, or spit or curse him. He’s right. You tell him you aren't leaving, but he’s right. You’ll stop pretending to hate him. He starts to deflate and you kiss him. There is no biting, no roughness to it at all. It’s not black, but it’s not heated enough to be flush, passionate enough. It’s… Something. And he’s caught by surprise. You’re not leaving, you tell him again. You’re entrenched in this shit.

Things are a bit easier from then on. You don’t force yourself to hate him. Not to pity him, either. You just… Accept him. You accept him and his illness. The fact that he is to die and you’ll never see this version of him, YOUR version of him ever again. And the fact seems to soothe him.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

But it is.

You've come to terms with it.

And after two nights of staying up with him, trying to comfort him from those coughs that never seem to end now, the blood and bile that is tinged with his stomach lining, coating the floor by the edge of his ‘coon after you gave up trying to clean it, he smiles. It is the first time you've seen one of his face like this. One that isn't smug, or defiant. He’s… Content. He’s happy, at peace. He crooks his finger at you, telling you to come closer and he captures your lips in a kiss. The same kiss you had given him when you told him you would stop pretending.

He asks what’s with the tears. Tells you you shouldn't be crying. The hive was already a mess, he didn't need any stains from a pissblood fucking up the place. You shake your head to deny it, but you can’t. Your vision is so blurry, you can barely see him just inches in front of you.

You tell him this isn't fair and he says he knows. You tell him you don’t want him to die and he says he doesn't either. You feel his hand, colder, more clammy than ever on the side of your face. Feel him brush away the tears.

Thanks, he says. For being there.

You’re wailing. You barely hear him. But that hand stops caressing your face. When it falls, you grab it. You hold it there.

You've come to terms with the fact that he was going to die.

You never said you wouldn't cry about it.


End file.
